Browsing yearly archives: 2007

Sex is supposed to be a good thing, but even this article shows us that it seems people need to be convinced. Why is it that so many people today need to be told that sex is a good thing? Isn’t the continuation of our species a good enough cause? Did people forget it feels good?

The moment our significant others start having sex with us because it might help lower their blood pressure or make them lose weight instead of because they love us and love making love to us, we are in trouble!

This topic is becoming almost depressing for me. It should be the complete opposite since I have a very healthy sexual life and without going into details I am pretty satisfied. However, what it seems like a high percentage of my friends are going through some difficult times in this department and I am sad to say I know how that feels. I not only saw it ruin relationships but it actually ended a couple of marriages close to me.

I have been in 5 long term relationships where there was regular sex. Yes I did have premarital sex and I am all for it, but that is a topic for another post. Out of those relationships where sex was involved only one of them had horrible sex, and the reason for it was that the relationship was the worse I have ever been into.

Bad sex can deteriorate a relationship very quickly, however many people don’t understand that it is directly related to the health of the relationship. I believe our current society is killing any chance for relationships to be healthy because of extremes. The people that look at sex in a very open free way tend to take it almost as far as the people that think it should only be for recreation.

I try to always look at both sides of the coin, but I only have the male perspective on this matter and I can tell you what killed sex for me in the past. I also know that it was also responsible to for relationship dynamic deterioration and more importantly my emasculation. Males need sex as much as females need to be told they are pretty, cuddled with and romanced. While we appreciate a hey, you clean up nice when we put a suit on, the ultimate compliment for a male is when his woman tells him she wants him in bed.

Sex started good in that relationship, but it quickly deteriorated. What started the problem is that sex became currency in the relationship. I think the moment the sex become a service provided for one of the people in the relationship, a marriage becomes more or less a form of prostitution. Yes, I did go that far, because prostitution is defined as the act or practice of engaging in sexual relations in exchange for something, especially for money.

The moment you hear, if you pick up the kids I will do that thing you like and you are excited because you have not had sex for more than a week, you my friend are in trouble. I have actually encountered several posts where one of the people in the relationship asks how much sex is normal… it really bothers me that in our society it have become so taboo to talk about sex that we have to ask strangers to convince the other person in our relationship that we should have more sex.

Sex became so bad for me in that relationship that it was a chore that nobody wanted to do. I ended up with performance problems, anxiety, guilt and all kinds of other problems which surprisingly went away once I was out of that horrible relationship. Worse is I ended up not liking sex with that person all that much, but then I had no other outlets so the frustration would just build up.

While that was not the only problem with that relationship, I think it can destroy a relationship or actually destroy people. A man that has to beg his spouse for sex becomes more and more emasculated with time, which I believe will cause conflict. Any kind of frustration will create resentment and eventually it will just end up being something else in a to do list and not the fun, loving, intimate thing sex is supposed to be for a couple.

So if you are in this situation right now what do you do?

First you have to address the problem in an open way. No games to be played here, they will only lead to power struggles. Convince your partner that sex is not for you, it is for the relationship and it should not become currency. If the other person really does not want to have sex it is probably due to an external factor.

If the problem is attraction or libido, there are plenty of ways to fix that. If the problem is more psychological, then you need to also address it. If the problem is lack of time, then make it a priority and make time. The only thing that you should not do is just ignore it, or say it will get better or come back. Believe me, it will get worse before it gets better. A marriage is a lot of work, don’t make sex something that feels like work.

If you want to get something in the mail and have it arrive before Christmas, the window is closing. It actually closes this Wednesday. Some of you were lucky enough to get an actual card in the mail from us 🙂 let us know if you did. The rest should enjoy the work of my talented wife 🙂

My Mom was extremely strict about a lot of things. As a kid I was never allowed to get dirty, play in a puddle of mud, not even out in the rain. As I got older I started to get to be more and more of a rebel and actually got my clothes dirty once in a while. I have no problem getting dirty now, but I think one of my flaws which is trying to be a perfectionist comes directly from that. It was not just how I looked that my Mom was concerned with, it was also with how I smelled.

Everyone has body odor. It is part of how we are and even how we communicate. Pheromones are the chemicals responsible for triggering a natural response that makes us attracted to other people. I remember one of my teachers who did not believe in deodorant but letting nature take its course. I also remember Richard Pryor talking about visiting Africa and encountering the smell of his tour guide less than pleasant… in turn his guide also found the smell of his cologne as offensive.

I started using deodorant probably before I needed to start using it. I was always very concerned about smelling good. I have always had cologne that I wear and can count on my hand the days that I have actually gone without a shower. I have to shower first thing in the morning or I feel uncomfortable until I do. I still to this day remember the day where I forgot to wear deodorant and how mortified I was about it.

I can remember every single time I have had to spend next to a person who’s body odor was not something I was comfortable with. I have tried to be very polite and never said anything about it, but I always wondered if it was something I should have mentioned. Do these people know that their body odor is really strong?

I know that when I have had a long day where my perspiration level was higher than normal I could smell myself and got home at my first oportunity to shower and change. Besides the ride back from playing soccer with friends in the car I cannot remember I time where I knew I smelled and I was ok with someone having to sit next to me. I think I was ok with it because I knew the other people that had to smell my odor were also pretty stinky themselves.

It is embarrassing to have to tell someone they smell and I am not sure if I would ever be able to actually do it. I know people who I have brought the subject up to have said that if they smelled bad I should tell them, but even in that case I would still have issues saying anything. Only a couple of times have the smell been so bad that I truly could not stand it and had to kind of gasp for air, and I still did not open my mouth.

Do the people that have such strong body odor know and just don’t care? Are those around them just immune to their smell? are they just used to the way they smell and don’t realize it? Would you tell someone you know that their body odor is offensive? What would you do in the same situation?

I defended blockbuster to the point that I said it was better than netflix as an online rental place. I believe they were for a year, but Blockbuster screwed up… big time.

They gave their customers a great deal to the point that I thought, hey a brick and mortar rental place is still relevant. The problem is that they did not really think of what they were doing. You could return your online rentals for new release movies and I think that just killed them. Then they take that away and make a lot of people upset because when you join a service because of a promotion, when it gets taken away most people are just going to bolt.

Netflix and their slowing down power renters really upset me. But I have decided to come back to them and check out their new community features. They are web 2.0 enough to make me interested, if they start making more flixter like they might have something going. That is one nail in the coffin, the one that truly closed the deal is probably the big red boxes.

Blockbuster is super expensive, renting 4 new releases pays for a whole month of netflix movies, which in my experience could be up to 20 movies. Netflix is now not slowing down their shipping and as long as you watch and send back pretty quickly you will always have something to watch. I kind of stagger the movies so that something is hopefully arriving as I send something.

Netflix also now allows you to watch movies directly from your PC which is becoming more and more popular. If you have not tried an online rental service, you should. The only way I would not is if a local store was still open around here, sadly Blockbuster helped run out of business the last one we had.